


Nerium Oleander

by AdrianaintheSnow



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Morally Grey Actions, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Rose was never a child but we are going with the metaphor of the Diamonds as her parents, Self-Destruction, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, This is not the story for you if you don't want to have at least some sympathy toward Rose Quartz, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-08-20 10:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20226433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdrianaintheSnow/pseuds/AdrianaintheSnow
Summary: In the end, Rose Quartz did kill Pink Diamond. Or perhaps more accurately, Pink Diamond killed Rose Quartz.“It got me thinking.”“About what?”“About me.”“That’s a good thing isn’t it?”“No.”(This is a sort of character study and revolves around some of the events that led up to Rose Quartz deciding to have Steven.)





	1. Parents

It had always been about entertainment for Rose. Her humans would come into her life and they’d have so much fun doing silly human things. But, then, they’d be gone in barely more than a moment. Either they’d chose to leave after a bit of fun, getting on with their normal human lives or they would die. She’d always be sad when they were gone, but their eventual abandonment had always been expected, accepted, from the beginning. For Rose, they were a nice distraction from her life of fighting and bubbling corrupted gems with the others. For the humans, she was a just a bit of fun, a novelty even as they loved her, even for the ones who only left her through death. They’d liked being with her, doing things with her, but they’d never expected or tried to know her.

Greg was… an entirely different experience.

“Do you have parents?” Rose’s eyes flickered open at the question. She wasn’t sure how long they’d been laying there in silence with their eyes closed, but the sun was now starting to set where it had still been midafternoon when she’d last opened her eyes. The sand around her was still warm from being baked from the sun all day and there was a soft, squishy human pressed up against her side. Said squishy human, of course, being the source of the question.

She giggled easily. “No,” she responded. “Gems don’t have parents. We’re made. Not born.”

“Huh. That’s so weird.” He nudged her a bit with his foot.

She nudged him back. “Most gems would think your way of making new humans is the weird way.”

He laughed softly. “Only most?” he asked.

“Well I know one who thinks it’s… quite… fun,” she purred.

She felt him shift beside her and he cleared his throat. “Is that so?” he asked. She felt a finger trace gently over her stomach, close enough to her gem to make her bite her lip. When nothing else came of it, she looked over at him. He continued to trace patterns on her body, but his eyes were distant.

“Greg?” she asked. He paused and looked up to meet her eyes. “Is something wrong?”

He sat up and ran a hand through his hair, causing some sand to cascade down his shoulders. “It’s nothing. Just…” he sighed, looking away. “It’s my mom’s birthday.”

Rose took a moment to attempt to dissect his tone. He sounded sad? “That’s a celebration humans usually have with their families,” she hedged.

“Yeah.”

“And you are… here.”

“Yeah.”

Millenia old habits told her to change the subject, to roll over and distract him from whatever was causing the frown in his eyes. But, she’d been trying something new with Greg. They’d agreed to try something new with each other. Something terrifying, but something that had been painfully rewarding so far. She pried her lips apart. “Do you,” it felt like she’d just swallowed a handful of the slightly warm sand next to her. “want to talk about it?”

She flinched a bit on the inside when he looked up at her, but there wasn’t any anger, or worse, annoyance, in his eyes and he didn’t pull away from her. Quite the opposite; he shifted around to lay with his head against her stomach. “I haven’t talked to my parents in over 6 years,” he told her. The lump in her throat loosened at the sound of the softness in his voice.

“Why?” she ventured after a moment’s hesitation. In her experience, humans typically were quite bonded with their blood relatives, especially their parents.

He sighed, and she tensed, worried she may have overstepped for a moment, but his fingers reached forward to gently pull at one of her curls, before watching it spring back. “We had a bad fight… well, we had a lot of bad fights. They wanted things from me, wanted me to be things I wasn’t, and they didn’t like it when I told them I wanted something else from life.”

“Oh,” she said softly.

“They wanted me to go be a doctor or a lawyer or something and I tried. I did. I went away to college for a semester, but it was so hard and so much work. I got okay grades, but I didn’t like what it did to me. I was so stressed out and I never had time to do anything fun. I came home for winter break after my first semester and an old high school friend convinced me to go to a music show. I remember watching the band play and not even really hearing the music or anything. I just watched them, and they all looked so happy and, me, I was miserable. I hadn’t even touched my guitar in months. I decided then that I wanted to drop out and go on the road. My parents, they,” he winced, and Rose felt something curdle in her chest at that, “didn’t really like that. I got stuff together, recorded some songs, and managed to book a few shows. When I told them I was going to go on tour, they told me not to come back if I left. So. I didn’t.”

Rose let the story sink in for a moment, something burning in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s… that’s horrible.”

She felt him shrug against her. “Yeah.” She reached down a hand to run it through his hair. They stayed like that for a while.

“I think I had parents.” He glanced up at her in surprise at the suddenness of her outburst. “I mean… if that’s something that parents might do, then, I think I may have had something like parents.”

He sat up to look at her, his eyes searching, but when she avoided his stare, he leaned back down and started gently playing with her curls again.

She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to even think about it, but the feel of his breath against her side and the gentle tug of his fingers coaxed words out from some deep, hidden, _rotted_ place inside her. “Not all gems are like us,” Rose said, eyes fixed on a cloud overhead. “Actually, most aren’t like us. When I said gems were made… The way they’re made isn’t exactly good.”

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“I came to Earth to make gems, but in order for gems to be made, we had to destroy things: destroy the Earth. But, the Earth was so beautiful; I fell in love with it. I couldn’t… I couldn’t take it anymore. So, I tried to make them stop. The Crystal Gems and I ended up starting a war with the other gems to protect the Earth. It was horrible. Gems died. Humans died. They just, the other gems, they couldn’t see it: why Earth was beautiful, why gems didn’t have to be perfect. They could never understand.”

“Including your ‘parents’.”

She chucked darkly. “Especially my ‘parents’.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been a hard decision to make. To go up against your family.”

“It was,” she said distantly, but then her brain processed what she’d just said. “Not that I. They were horrible. So. It wasn’t like that. I.”

“Hey,” he said. “It’s okay.” She swallowed and shoved the thoughts violently back into their corner where they belonged.

“You’re right. It’s nothing.”

He frowned. “No, I mean, it’s okay to feel conflicted if they were your family.”

“I don’t.”

“Rose-” she cut him off with a kiss, but he didn’t respond to it and she quickly pulled back.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Really.” He didn’t look like he believed her. “It’s getting dark,” she said. “We should get back.” She hopped to her feet. He slowly got to his feet too, watching her. He didn’t try to bring it up again, but she could feel the conversation polluting the air, leaving nothing to breath. She could taste the words she had said on her tongue still, the rotted feelings that she couldn’t seem to stick back in their corner, slipping down her throat and souring her stomach. A slow acting poison.


	2. Friends

Rose sat curled on the hand of the Obsidian statue watching the ocean with weary eyes. Though gems did not sleep, they often need some form of rest, but that hadn’t been forthcoming lately. If she had been willing to let her mind linger on the thought for more than a second, she would know the cause, but she refused to do so. She pretended that she had no idea why she felt like this. Pretended the conversation with Greg had never happened.

The waves were calm today, gently rolling and softly crashing against the shore, a striking contrast to Rose’s thoughts. She tried to breath in time with the waves, but she didn’t seem to be able to.

She heard the warp pad activate below her, but kept her eyes closed until she heard Amethyst’s voice getting closer.

“Aw, Pearl!” She said. “Why can’t I just wash off in the temple?”

Rose’s eyes popped open to see Pearl carrying Amethyst at arm’s length. The smaller gem was covered from head to toe in some bright yellow substance. “Oh no,” Pearl replied and even with how far away from her they were, Rose just knew her nose was scrunched up in disgust. “You are not tracking that stuff into the Temple.”

Usually that would make Rose laugh, but today any merriment lodged in her throat, chocking her.

“But Pearl! It’s fun to be messy!”

“No, it absolutely is not,” Pearl scolded. Amethyst wiggled around a bit in Pearl’s grip before tilting her head back to look at her with a pout. Pearl ignored her. The two of them had a strange dynamic. Pearl liked bossing her around and nagging her a bit, mostly because unlike anyone who had ever stepped foot on Homeworld, Amethyst would accept it without question. She took Pearl’s orders and advice the same way she would take them from Rose or Garnet. Often, with a bit of complaining, but with the understanding that Pearl had the authority to do so. In fact, she seemed to take Pearl’s demands more seriously than she did Rose’s, even when she rebelled against them. It was upside down as far as Homeworld ideals went, but Amethyst had never known them. Not to mention, the small quartz had been so lonely for the beginning of her life (Rose’s fault) that, even when she complained, she very obviously enjoyed having someone care about her enough to nag.

“Garnet!” Pearl yelled suddenly. When Rose glanced down, there was a bright yellow streak down the back of Pearl’s outfit. Garnet was standing there appearing casual, but under that Rose could see satisfaction dripping off her. Pearl narrowed her eyes at the fusion and put Amethyst down softly on her feet before gathering some of the goo in the purple girl’s hair into her hand.

“Yay!” Amethyst cheered at the change in mood as the two larger gems squared up. Rose couldn’t see it, but she imagined Garnet had one of those rare large smiles on her face. They started to play fight, Pearl lunging and ducking under Garnet’s arms to try to get a hit in and Garnet dodging away.

It reminded Rose of the early days of the rebellion. She remembered that she used to think that Pearl didn’t like to play games with the others like Rose did. She’d assumed that the bigger gems were too rough for the pearl’s tastes. (Which had, of course, been naïve considering that she often went to war against quartz soldiers and won.) Rose had entertained this idea for a long time until one day when she’d grown bored of playing games with the other Crystal Gems and had gone looking for Pearl.

She’d found her and Garnet in a field near their base play sparing much like how they were now. Pearl had had a definite advantage back then as Garnet hadn’t quite honed her future vision for fighting. Rose had watched as the fusion groaned in frustration as the other slipped out of her fingers, dancing away and laughing a laugh Rose had never heard before: something high-pitched and free and just obnoxious enough to be adorable. They’d paused for a moment and Rose had decided to make herself know, clapping a bit at the show.

Garnet had turned toward her, surprised, but with a gleeful smile still on her face, but behind her back, Pearl seemed to shrink, something in her face shutting down. Her hands had curled, gripping the fabric of her shirt near her stomach and twisting it. She’d refused to continue sparing with Garnet after that, making an excuse to leave. It had been one of the memories Rose intended to bury with Pink Diamond’s shards, but it flickered across her mind now with such a clarity that it could have happened an hour ago rather than millennia ago.

After that day, Rose had paid more attention to Pearl (though she was careful to keep her distance) and found that she wasn’t as against playing around with other Crystal Gems as Rose had thought. True, she didn’t often mess around with new recruits, but she’d happily trade taunts with Bismuth and seemed to relish sneaking up behind Garnet and poking her in the back of the head with the brunt end of her spear before darting away before being grabbed. (At one point someone had organized a game called “Bop the Fusion” where they got 1 point for tapping Garnet on the back of the head with a weapon and 2 for doing so and getting away. Pearl had always been in the lead, managing to gain points even when Garnet had honed her future vision enough to prevent anyone else from doing so.) But, the games weren’t only with her closest friends. She’d trade blows with many of the quartzes around camp, even agreeing to a few wrestling matched with the ones she knew better despite the fact that she always got thrashed in that type of combat. She was even known to play around with the group of 5 rubies that had been the first larger group to defect from Pink’s guard. It ended up more like a game of whack a mole. Pearl liked playing games with her comrades. She just didn’t want Rose to see it.

If she knew Rose could see her now, would she still stop? Would she shut down and back away? Even after all these years?

Below her, Pearl yelped as Garnet anticipated her dodge and grabbed her around the waist. Pearl giggled when she was swept off her feet. “Cheater!” she accused. “You used future vision.”

“Hmmm…”

And Pearl must have seen something on her face that Rose could not, because she suddenly screeched. “Don’t you dare!” a moment before Garnet swung her up and lobbed her into the ocean.”

“Garnet!”

“You were messy!”

“Me next! Me next!” Amethyst demanded, running around Garnet a few times. Garnet obliged, grabbing her by the back of her shirt before tossing her slightly behind Pearl. Pearl shrieked as she was splashed.

They were so… happy. Rose curled her legs up against her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Below her, Pearl made it back to shore, Amethyst clinging to her shoulders. She glared at Garnet who seemed unequivocally unrepentant.

“Amethyst fuse with me,” Pearl said. Amethyst made a happy sound and after a little dance, Opal was standing there.

“Now you’re in for it,” Opal said. Which was probably true considering Pearl’s skills and knowledge of Garnet and the way Amethyst’s unpredictability often fogged up Garnet’s future vision. Opal lunged forward without warning and Garnet barely managed to duck and roll away from her.

Rose attempted a breath, but it burned on the way down. Despite the sun hitting her face and the smell of salt water drifting on the breeze, all she could see was the memory of a cold dark room, it’s wall’s closing in on her, trapping her, punishing her.

There was a splash as Garnet was tossed into the ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, if you're interested, when I was writing this months ago, a plot bunny got away from me and I ended up publishing the one-shot ["Bop the Fusion"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18230972) which is a silly bit of nothing but fluff (I hope that link works, I don't actually know how to do this in the notes...) You may find that Rose's assessment of how Pearl felt about her knowing she played games with the others (at least later in the Rebellion) may be a bit skewed by her current state of mind.


	3. Dreams of All Kinds

Rose stared at the roof of Greg’s van. She could feel his ribcage expanding and contracting as he slept peacefully next to her. The air smelled just a bit of pepperoni and she wondered if he’d eaten pizza for dinner before she’d stopped by unexpectedly in an attempt to distract herself.

By the end of it, she’d assumed she’d worn him out enough that he’d go right to sleep, but Greg, soft, perceptive Greg, had intently scrutinized her when she’d suggested he get some rest.

And then he’d asked what was wrong.

She hadn’t known what to say or how to explain.

“This is… this is new to me,” Rose had finally settled on, the words coming out in a hesitant whisper.

“What is?”

“This,” she’d said, waving her arms around in front of her. He’d raised an eyebrow and she’d sighed. “I never… we didn’t… I never talked to anyone before.”

His eyes had crinkled in confusion. “What do you mean?”

She’d groaned, annoyed at herself. “I mean… As far as I can remember, anything I said was either law or ignored, depending on the listener. I never could just, just _talk. _There was always something standing in the way. And now, I don’t know how to do it_._”

“Talk to someone?”

She’d leaned her head back against the side of the van and frowned. “I don’t think I ever had an actual conversation with anyone before you.” Emotions of all kind had danced across his face. He had such an open face.

“Is this about the conversation on the beach?”

She’d glanced at him. “It got me thinking.”

“About what?”

“About me.”

“That’s a good thing isn’t it?”

“No.”

Silence.

“I don’t even know who ‘me’ is. What if… what if this,” she’d gestured to herself, “is a lie? I’ve been alive for so long. I’ve done so many things and not all of them good. What’s even real anymore?”

He’d grabbed her hand and put it on his heart. “This is.”

And, in that moment, that had felt true, so she’d smiled and let her thoughts fade away. “It is.”

“It doesn’t matter who you were,” he’d told her. “You decide who you are now, and I love the person you are deciding to be.” The kiss he’d gave her sent warmth through her chest.

“I love you too Greg.” And for a short while, that was enough, but now, as she listened to him make sleepy mumbles, one arm thrown across her stomach, just barely brushing her gem, it could not starve off the thoughts.

She closed her eyes and in her mind’s eye, her hands were not her own. No. They were hers, but not the ones she wanted. She could feel a different form flickering like a ghost over the one she wore.

And which was the truth? Which was the lie? Were they both lies? Was anything she was or had been even true. Was it real?

She hadn’t thought about The Before in so long. Hadn’t thought about who she was before she was Rose in so long. Hadn’t thought about _them._ Hadn’t let herself. But now the thoughts were slipping through the cracks, clawing at her throat. She tried desperately to cling to something. Humans, she thought.

There were humans: so soft and funny who danced around joyfully and had no care in the world. And there was blood, dripping down her dress because humans died so messily, but, when it mattered, they threw themselves into battle anyway with things so much stronger than them.

There was Pearl, too far away, having been disarmed by a Jasper who was closing in and what had she been thinking letting a pearl fight something so much stronger than her. But then, there was a flash of light and the Jasper had a spear through her stomach; Pearl didn’t seem surprised by the spear in her hand.

There was a sword in Pearl’s hand which clattered to the ground when she came in. Despite what they’d shared on Earth, Pearl shrunk away, and she knew that the gem expected a punishment for that.

There was a dark room that had a roof that was far too high, but at the same time the walls were closing in, chocking her in the dark. Time never seemed to have meaning here; had it been days, or had it been centuries?

There was always something moving or growing on Earth; the humans marked their time by the pattern of growth along with the patterns of the sun and moon and wasn’t that wonderful? The cross-gem fusion plucked a flower and offered it to her; it seemed the Earth could even make gems grow.

There was a marked divide between the lush fields and the towering trees that made up most of the Earth and the start of the Kindergarten. Gems killed everything they touched.

There were yellow eyes that barely touched on her before fliting away to a screen where a diagram of the plan for a new colony was pulled up. Teeth gritted when she demanded attention and she was angry, so angry; she stomped her foot and insisted she was one of them and she deserved respect.

There were gems that bowed to her every demand, barely daring to speak to her, and there were gems who looked at her like she hung the sun with smiles on their faces. She sometimes had trouble sorting out which belonged to which group of her followers.

There was a battle field covered in gem shards both from the rebels and from Homeworld; she had trouble sorting out which belonged to which group; it was a superficial difference anyway. Broken: everything was broken.

There was Pearl, her once pink skin bleached and her one remaining eye unfocused.

There was Pearl, form gone, and gem cracked, on the cusp of not being mendable. And there were her tears, streaming down her face.

There were her tears, streaming down her face, drawn unwillingly from her eyes as she crumpled to her knees, curling into herself. She could see nothing but blue.

There was a blinding white light and screaming. Damage from the Diamonds. The Diamonds.

There were diamonds. Blue. Yellow.

There were giant white eyes that opened slowly, looking at her in confusion.

…

…

…

_Starlight?_

Pi-Rose woke with a gasp. A dream. She felt Greg stir beside her. “Rose?” he asked. His van was usually a comfy sort of closed in, but, at the moment, she wanted to rip off its roof. She restrained the urge, just barely. He’d be upset if she did that.

“I need to go,” she told him and pressed a kiss to his forehead. His mouth curled up in a sleepy smile, his eyes not opening. “Go back to sleep.”

She stepped out of the van and took a deep breath of cool air. The sky was just starting to lighten in the East. The openness made her feel a bit better, but not enough. She paced back and forth outside the van for a few minutes. She felt trapped even with the open sky above her and all of Earth’s life around her. Her form felt wrong and too tight. It was like when something was covering her gem: smothering. She found herself moving away from Greg’s van, moving faster than a normal walk, but resisting the urge to run.

She finally came to a halt in a small park, not quite remembering how she’d gotten there. It was a nice park. There was a lot of grass and a community garden along with a swing set and a contraption with slides and a small rock-climbing wall for the small humans to play on.

She sat on a bench near the playing area and stared at nothing for a while.

She only realized the park was no longer empty when someone sat next to her. Rose blinked, noticing a young human was now on top of the play equipment. Assumedly, a member of its family was the person now sitting next to her.

“Hello,” Rose greeted.

The human studied her for a moment. “You’re Greg’s girl, aren’t you?”

Rose blinked. “Oh, um. Yes.”

“Vidalia,” she said, offering a hand. It was a name Rose vaguely knew she’d heard before.

“Rose,” she responded, taking the hand on autopilot.

Vidalia chucked a bit. “Yeah, I’m aware.” Rose gave her a curious look and the woman’s nose crinkled a bit as she smiled. “Greg might talk about you. Like, a lot.”

“I see,” Rose said, smiling softly in spite of everything.

Vidalia considered her for a moment. “You alright?” she asked.

Rose felt her chest tighten a bit. How could anyone ask something like that to a total stranger, she wondered. “Why do you ask?” she asked instead, in a good estimation of polite confusion if anyone asked her.

Vidalia tilted her head. “Well for one, you were just sitting in a park alone, staring at thin air with a look on your face like someone had just stabbed your puppy in front of you.”

Rose frowned. “I don’t have a puppy.”

Vidalia made a sound somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “Never mind. You still didn’t answer the question.”

“The question?” Rose asked as though she didn’t know.

“Are you alright?” Vidalia repeated.

It should be easy to say yes. Lying was the only thing Rose was good at. Yet, the word would not come out for some reason. So, Rose said nothing.

Apparently, her silence was an answer. “Okay,” Vidalia said, knowingly. “Where’s Greg?”

“Sleeping still. I just left him.”

“What about your… uh… friends?” she asked.

“At the temple probably. At least they were last night.”

“Do you want to go find one of them?”

Rose hadn’t even thought about going to one of the gems. She hesitated for a moment. On one hand, she did. She wanted to talk to Pearl or let Amethyst cuddle up to her or just sit next to Garnet in silence. On the other… “Not particularly,” she chocked out past some strange obstruction in her throat.

“Alright,” her brows had drawn together, her eyes darting over Rose’s face. Rose wondered what she saw. Nothing good, she imagined. “That’s alright. We can just sit here. I can be quiet if you want. Or I can talk about something else.”

“Talk?” Rose asked.

“Okay. Hmmm. So, Sour Cream, my son,” she nodded over at the child on the playset. “he’s going to be starting at a preschool next week. I’m honestly a little worried about it, which is silly, but I think most moms feel that way. I don’t even know what I’ll do with the free time. Maybe pick up a few more shifts at work. Course he’s only going for half a day. It’ll be different when he hits kindergarten and goes for the whole day…”

Vidalia continued to talk for a very long time about seemingly every part of her life. Rose was baffled by how much she told her. It felt like the human showed her every piece of herself and not only the positive, but the negative as well: hurts, insecurities, even things she did that she now regretted.

“… so, then she quit school and while I know it wasn’t all because of me, I know I really didn’t help. I mean, sure I didn’t know about all of the other stuff going on at home, but I didn’t have to be such a c- horrible person about it.”

“I don’t think you’re a horrible person.” It was the first thing Rose had said in a long while. Vidalia’s son, Sour Cream had long stopped playing on the slides by himself and was now happily playing in a sandbox with a couple of other children who’d shown up.

Vidalia smiled ruefully at her. “I try not to be anymore. Don’t know if I’ll ever quite get there.”

“I’m sure you can,” Rose said softly. “You’re human. I’ve seen how you can all change and grow.”

Vidalia laughed. “We don’t really. Not easily at least. Sometimes, we can’t.”

They sat in silence for a moment. “Why do you try to change then? If that’s really what you think. What’s the point?”

She sighed. “Because, I’m not the point,” she said. “I might not ever be the type of person I wish I was, but sometimes, the best you can do is make sure it ends with you.” She nodded to her son who was joyfully helping another small human put decorative sticks on a sandcastle. “See that kid over there? He’s not going to make the same mistakes I did. I’ll make sure of it and hopefully the world is better for it.”

Vidalia and Rose watched the young humans, chattering amongst themselves, for a few moments and something inside Rose twisted, but not in the choking way it had been when the thoughts became too much the last few days. No, it was something different that she couldn’t quite understand. An aching sort of want. I wish I could make something like that, Rose thought, and she was not talking about the poorly constructed sand castle. I wish I could give something to the world, instead of just take.

If only it could all end with me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That dream sequence was the closest thing to an actually okay poem I've ever written and I can't share it with anyone in real life because they don't have any context...


	4. A Perhaps

Not much came of the alien train of thought in the park that day for a few years. Rose didn’t forget the idea of course. It always hummed slightly in the back of her head, but it wasn’t really an actual idea. It was more of a thought experiment: a musing. Not something she necessarily planned to act upon, just something she wondered about in her spare time.

Was it possible for a gem to make a child?

She’d researched it, squirreling away little bits of time to sneak off to old gem databases no one else on Earth had access to and human libraries far from Beach City. Of course, there wasn’t actually a direct answer to her question, but she found herself learning more about how gems worked and how humans worked: how gemstones function, how genes function, how bodies of light or flesh were built from these foundations.

She figured, if she wanted to, she could easily craft human DNA and grow it. She’d experimented with plants mostly in her time on Earth, but she’d also influence some fauna. It wouldn’t actually be that much of a step up. She could even carry it like a human did. If she wanted to, she could let Greg contribute. She wondered if he might like that. Human’s liked smushing their genes together to make new humans; most humans dedicated a large chunk of their lives to making and molding the results. She could give Greg that extra special humany part of life if he wanted it. Though, in the end, it would only be artificially hers. Nothing that was truly her would end up in it.

And it would die.

If the thought of that stung for a hypothetical offspring, Rose couldn’t imagine the pain it would bring if she put it into practice.

There was, of course, another option, though one whose logistics were a bit harder. If she truly wanted a child that was hers, her gem would have to be involved and unlike human’s genes, gems weren’t made to be split apart and combined with other things. It was either no gem or all of the gem, and if she let herself contemplate it long enough in the right mood, she might think about how that would 100% solve the dilemma of it ever dying before her.

As always, her musings came to one conclusion: gems can’t make anything without destroying something first. Though, at least in this case, she would only inflict the damage on herself.

…

But, it wasn’t something she was going to do, of course. It was just a thought.

At least, it was for a while.

Rose surveyed the fight, trying to figure out the best course of action. By all rights, it should have been an easy capture. Would have been. But. The corruption was a ruby.

This was not a frequent problem. After all, there weren’t many pearls or sapphires on Earth when the corruption song rang, and Amethyst didn’t really understand and didn’t even twitch when fighting another amethyst. And well, Rose didn’t have to worry about it at all.

But, there were rubies.

And it was worse for Garnet than it would have been for just Ruby. Not only was one of her components of the same type, which stung with a very particular brand of sorrow, but the other component may have a bit of a soft spot for rubies and a tendency to project.

Which left one of the members of their team uncharacteristically unbalanced. That is how they got here.

The corruption clamped its jaws around Amethyst’s neck and there was a pop as she lost her form. Pearl dashed for their comrade’s gem as Garnet pulled herself together to cover her. She managed to beat back it’s maw, but her legs were whipped out from under her by its swinging tail. Garnet had bought Pearl enough time to grab Amethyst and retreat to behind Rose’s shield and Garnet managed to just roll out of the way of a giant foot.

Rose leapt forward, distracting the corruption by tossing her shield at its head before summoning another. She charged forward, her sword raised. The weapon easily slashed through the corrupted ruby’s middle and it poofed. She stretched out a hand to grab the gem out of the air as it fell. It landed in her palm and the world froze for a moment. She recognized this gem.

It hadn’t been a rebel.

It had been a Homeworld soldier: a member of the guard to Pink Diamond before her shattering and a common foot solider in the battles that followed. Rose stared at the gem, glinting peacefully in her hand as though it weren’t completely ruined on the inside. Out of nowhere, a crippling amount of hate suddenly crested the carefully constructed walls in her mind, spilling down her throat and crushing her chest. The Diamonds. This was the fault of the Diamonds. Blue, Yellow, and White had corrupted their own soldiers to end the rebellion. It was a fact she’d always known, one she’d crushed down and buried deep with all of the other ugly, shattered pieces inside her, but it reared up with a vengeance, angry at being ignored for so long. She stared at this familiar gem in her hand. She hated The Diamonds. All they did was destroy. All they did was take. She hated them all.

In merely a second, the hate gave way to sorrow. I don’t want to destroy, she thought, I want to create. She touched a finger to the gem. The innocent gem that did nothing wrong. She… didn’t want to be here anymore.

“Rose?” Pearl questioned. “Amethyst is fine?” When Rose blinked up at her in confusion, she felt a tear slide down her face. She wiped it away hastily, bubbling the corrupted ruby in her hand and sending it back to the temple. She flashed a smile at Pearl.

“Right. Good. Got a little ahead of myself.” Pearl was looking at her oddly now, Amethyst’s gem cradled in her hand. Rose shook away the sadness. It left a chasm of nothing in its wake. “Let’s head back.” After a moment, Pearl nodded.

Pearl and Rose led the way down the mountain path. Rose listened to Pearl chatter, mostly mumbling her worries about Amethyst in the form of complaints. They’d almost made it halfway down the mountain when Garnet spoke up behind them.

“What are you hiding from me?” Pearl and Rose looked back at her in confusion, but her eyes were unfocused. She wasn’t talking to them.

“Nothing. Just don’t.”

“But…”

“Just-” and suddenly Ruby and Sapphire were standing where Garnet had been just a moment before. “Don’t,” Sapphire finished.

“Sapphire!” Ruby said surprised. Sapphire didn’t respond, her lips firm and her face impassive. “I…” She looked back at Rose and Pearl and then back to Sapphire. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” A clear lie considering the ice that was swiftly forming at her feet. Ruby shuffled anxiously for a few moments before deciding. She plucked Sapphire off the ground.

“Uh…” Ruby said. “Garnet will be back soon?” And she ran off into the woods.

There was a sinking feeling in Rose’s gut. Because while holding a corrupted Homeworld gem only a few minutes ago, a thought experiment, a musing, had solidified into a perhaps. A possible future.

“What was that about?” Pearl asked startled.

Rose thought she might know.


	5. Old Damage; New Damage

When they’d gotten back to the temple, Rose had offered to take Amethyst to her room. Pearl had headed up to her own room, probably to organize her already perfectly in place sword collection. Rose now sat on an old mattress next to Amethyst’s gem to wait. It wouldn’t be long before the quartz regenerated, she knew.

Rose was not sure how she felt at the moment and was not keen to analyze it. She fiddled with some sort of human toy. It was a cube that was divided into more cubes. She wasn’t sure at first if it was supposed to twist as it did, but since it did it fairly easily and in a sort of pattern, she imagined it was designed that way. It had 6 different colors (no pink, she observed), though the paint was chipped on a few of the cubes. She fiddled with it, unsure what the goal actually was of the game. Perhaps there wasn’t one at all and it was just for fiddling with. It was fairly enjoyable to make the toy shift and snap together. For a moment she was confused about where the water dripping onto the cube was coming from.

Ah, she thought, I’m crying.

She wiped at the tears on her cheeks, but they didn’t seem to want to stop. It was confusing. Rose didn’t even feel sad. She didn’t really feel much of anything at the moment.

Panic managed to cut through the wall of dullness in her head, because crying while not being sad was a horrifyingly familiar sensation. But no, these tears were definitely from her. They were welling up from somewhere deep inside her and overflowing, not being torn out. It lacked a certain bite to it. She hadn’t even curled up into a protective ball: still sitting normally with the toy in her hands.

She took a couple of shaky breaths to calm herself and wiped her face again. The tear drops smeared against her hand, sparkling a little bit. They were healing tears, but what she was trying to heal, she wasn’t sure, but she was sure they’d never reach it.

Amethyst’s gem lit up and Rose managed to shut down the tears, focusing instead on the newer form Amethyst had. She had a new shirt, which was long sleeved, a style the gem rarely went for. She plopped down onto the mattress with a little bounce before blinking at her surroundings.

“Hi!” she said happily when she noticed Rose was there. She bounced over and landed straight in Rose’s lap. Rose felt warmth spread through her chest as the younger gem cuddled up against her.

“You poofed again,” Rose said with a frown, gently scratching at the top of her head.

She saw the quartz roll her eyes. “Yeah, but this time it wasn’t my fault,” Amethyst said.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” she said. “’Cause if it was, Pearl would be here lecturing me already.” She paused and looked up at Rose a bit concerned. “Unless she got poofed too?”

Rose smiled softly down at her. “No, Pearl is fine.”

“Okay! Then it’s not my fault.”

Rose couldn’t help but chuckle at her logic. “Fair enough.”

Amethyst squinted at her. “Have you been crying?” she asked. “Did I get cracked? I don’t remember getting cracked.” She looked down at her gem even though she must know that if she had been Rose would’ve made sure there was no sign of it left.

“No, no one got cracked.”

Amethyst looked up at her and tilted her head. She tugged on Rose’s dress, insistently, a question in her eyes. Rose didn’t answer but to pat her head.

When it was clear Rose wasn’t going to give her any answers, Amethyst squirmed, readjusting herself so she was sprawled across Rose’s legs. She seemed to know not to ask any more questions about it.

“Can you tell me a story?” Amethyst asked.

“About what?” Rose asked.

“Hmmm. Something about the other gems?”

“Don’t you hear enough about that from Pearl?”

Amethyst rolled her eyes. “Those aren’t stories. They’re either boring lectures or dramatic retellings where I can’t even tell what’s real or not. Either way, I end up falling asleep.”

“End up falling asleep or willfully fall asleep?” Rose asked. She of course knew the answer since gems didn’t have an instinct to fall asleep. Amethyst just grinned up at her. Rose carded a hand through her hair. “What do you want to hear about?”

Amethyst squirmed a bit and suddenly looked hesitant. “Can we talk about me?” she asked quietly.

“You?”

“Well, like, before me. Like how I was made.”

Rose froze. “I thought Pearl already explained that to you.”

“Well, yeah, but…” she mumbled and then trailed off, looking away from Rose and angling her face so her hair fell over her eyes.

Rose had gone tense underneath her. The Kindergarten. The death. My fault. My fault. My fault. And she must have let something show on her face, must have paused too long, or inhaled too sharply because suddenly Amethyst was looking up at her and Rose was not looking away. Something shuttered over the small gem’s eyes.

“Never mind,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to know.” The warm weight was gone from Rose’s lap suddenly, leaving Rose with the cold, bitter knowledge that she’d just done something really, really, wrong, but she still didn’t speak as the younger gem disappeared deeper into her room.


	6. Old Friends and Old Wounds

Garnet hadn’t come back yet. Garnet disappearing for a while was not uncommon, but the circumstances of her absence were worrying. Amethyst had been gone more often than not in the month since she’d reformed, usually off to spend time with Vidalia according to Greg. Pearl was very obviously fretting over the strange behavior of her friends, organizing things more than usual and slipping into silences in ways she rarely did anymore. She’d drifted toward being more pliant in the face of Rose’s distress which only served to distress Rose more when she’d realized it. Old habits died hard it would seem.

Perhaps Rose should have given her friend more credit.

“What, Rose?” Pearl finally broke, almost snapping at her, the softness she’d been hiding behind the last few days finally shattering around her. Rose almost sighed in relief even as she hated the question. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Rose lied.

Pearl narrowed her eyes and somehow managed to look down her nose at Rose despite their height difference. “Rose.” The frustrated hiss was a warning if Rose had ever heard one. Rose pursed her lips. Pearl closed her eyes and pressed two of her fingers against her forehead and then rubbed as though she had a headache. It was a very non-gemlike gesture she’d picked up from humans long ago. It was a very Pearl sort of move and very much not a pearl one and that made something unclench in Rose’s chest.

Rose felt drawn forward toward the other gem. She brushed a finger against the ones Pearl had placed on her forehead and Pearl opened her eyes to look at her. She softened instantly, but not in that scary way that shredded Rose’s insides, but in an affectionate way. She rolled her eyes. “Somebody needs to tell me what’s going on,” she intreated. “And Garnet’s not here and Amethyst won’t speak to me. What is wrong?” She was clearly incredibly frustrated.

“I’m not sure what’s wrong with Amethyst and Garnet,” she offered, which wasn’t completely a lie. She didn’t _know. _Though she had a few ideas and they all were ultimately her fault.

“Alright. Then what’s wrong with you?” she asked. Rose felt herself shrink under her watchful gaze and she had to turn away.

“I…” she walked a few feet away and sat on the edge of the entrance to the temple, staring out toward the ocean. She heard Pearl’s soft footsteps as she followed, but she didn’t look when the other gem sat next to her.

Pearl sat a hand on Rose’s shoulder, her fingers like feathers. “Rose,” she beseeched.

“Do you ever think about before?” Rose asked.

“Before?” Pearl asked and even though she wasn’t looking, Rose could see in her head the familiar line that would have appeared between Pearl’s eyes and the way her mouth doubtlessly pulled down in a frown like it always did when she was confused.

“Before Rose.”

The reaction was instantaneous, the fingers that had been on her arms were ripped off and there was a slapping sound.

Rose’s head snapped up to see both of Pearl’s hands slapped over her mouth, her eyes wide and surprised.

Right.

Of course.

Right.

She had almost forgotten, she’d shoved that so far into the darkest depths of the things-that-Pink Diamond-did box.

But you are Pink Diamond, she thought.

These are things that _you _did.

She was on her feet a moment later, baking away, as Pearl struggled with her own hands. She turned and ran. She heard Pearl yell “Rose,” as she managed to yank her fingers from her lips a moment before the warp pad activated.

Rose had not made a conscious decision to come here, though, it was perhaps the most logical place to go. She looked up at the doors to the old forge which hadn’t been used in so very long. No one would look for her here, not even Garnet if she pulled herself together to look. No one would even know she was able to get in here with her universal access codes, which worked even on the tech for the rebellion. Well, Pearl would probably know, but she wouldn’t be able to say. Rose felt like laughing hysterically at the thought.

Even if they did come here and they did get in, there was no way anyone would know about the room underneath. Only two people ever had. Rose had taken care of the other. She felt her feet carry her to the cut out on the floor and was easily able to shapeshift her hand into the correct shape to start her decent into the room underneath the forge.

The room was just as she’d left it the last time she’d come to visit.

She stared into the room: at the weapon that had been discarded on the floor, at the bubbled gem floating near the roof of the chamber.

Rose sighed. Why did she come here?

Despite that thought, she moved forward. She ignored the weapon and hopped up to grab the pink bubble before floating down and sitting cross legged on the floor.

“Hello,” she said to the gem even though she could not hear her and would not want to hear her besides. Not after what Rose had done. She stared at it for a long time. Days probably. “Maybe you were right.”

The thought crossed her mind that she should pop the bubble. She should pop the bubble and then tell her everything. She’d shatter Rose after that of course; she hated the Diamonds and rightfully so. It… didn’t seem as bad of an idea as it had millennia before.

But then all there would be was shards. Just more destruction.

She let the bubble go and it floated away.

Rose didn’t want more destruction; she never had. She wanted something else: something better, something more.

She left the gem there, for now. “I’ll put you somewhere they can find before,” she promised the unhearing gem before leaving the chamber.


	7. Things to Come

She’d gone back home after that, and surprisingly, Garnet had arrived with her. They didn’t speak. Rose avoided Pearl’s involuntary silence and questioning eyes and ignored Amethyst’s distance. She spent a lot of time with Greg but brushed off any of his questions when he noticed she was acting strange. She went off on her own often: to the dessert, to the sky arena, to the Strawberry Battle Field.

This went on for over two months.

Rose found Garnet on top of a large rock covered in giant strawberries. Well, she supposed, she didn’t find her, that would imply she’d been looking. It was probably more accurate that Garnet found her all things considered.

She sat with her legs crossed, her shades gone and all three of her eyes closed. Rose didn’t disturb her and instead jumped up to land in front of her softly before sitting across from her in a similar position. Then, she waited.

The sun had started casting long shadows by the time Garnet’s eyes finally flickered open. “Hello Rose,” she greeted. Rose didn’t ask the fusion why she’d been away or why she’d been avoiding Rose since she’d been back. She didn’t need to.

“What would happen?” she asked. “If I did it.”

Garnet considered her, her three eyes piercing her in a way Rose wasn’t used to. “I don’t understand why you would want to,” she spoke slowly.

Rose thought. There were so many reasons. She looked into one of her oldest friends’ eyes and she wanted to tell her all of them. She wanted the words to come spewing from her mouth until she was empty. She wanted to let go of all of the secrets and the lies and the boiling hate. But she couldn’t. So, she put it in a language she knew Garnet would understand.

“Greg is different than the other humans,” she said. “I find myself thinking about things a lot. About him. The past. The future. I’ve always thought about how humans are created. It’s so different from how gems are born. We take and destroy, but they give and create new lives. It’s beautiful.” Garnet was watching her closely and Rose constructed the next words carefully, looking for a kernel of truth in the lie. “I want to make something for once in my life. And I want to do it with Greg. I want to give the world something that is a little bit me and a little bit him, but at the same time is something that is neither of us.” Rose looked into her eyes. “Do you understand?”

After a moment, Garnet nodded and reached up a hand to summon her glasses. She leaned forward, pressing Sapphire’s gem into her shoulder and Ruby’s into her cheek. Her hands were shaking just a bit. Then, she pressed a kiss to Rose’s forehead.

Rose saw… many things. Thousands of possibilities. Dozens of different children, each with different faces and personalities, yet, all the same in many ways. She saw:

Babies drooling on, grabbing, napping on, attempting to eat Garnet’s hair.

Toddler’s chasing a purple cat, dog, rabbit, mini dragon at a startling speed.

Greg’s familiar hands dwarfing much smaller, soft ones, adjusting them against a keyboard, a ukulele, a pair of drumsticks.

Pearl pulling up a train, cat, dinosaur blanket to a young child’s chin with a soft smile Rose had never seen on her face before as she flipped off the lights.

A house nestled into the temple so perfectly, it looked like that is the reason the temple had been constructed in the first place.

Faces of people she did not know laughing and frowning and sticking out their tongues.

Rose saw the future. One without her. And it was good.

When Rose came back to herself, Garnet was pulling away. The fusion stood up and turned away from her. She looked over her shoulder at Rose. “I guess that’s it then.” She walked away.


	8. In the End; In the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am uploading two chapters at one. The last chapter is the real chapter and this is just a little tie up. So read that first!

In the end, Rose Quartz did kill Pink Diamond. Or perhaps more accurately, Pink Diamond killed Rose Quartz.

Either way, both are gone, but they didn’t die shattered under a weapon or a fist.

She died with seven words.

“Greg, I want to have a baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


End file.
